[Note:
There has been a great deal on talk radio recently about how to reduce
the federal budget. One suggestion that repeatedly has been mentioned
is that we could eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Below is
an article I wrote on that subject in 1999. It went over the Knight-Ridder/Tribune
News Service wires and is still relevant today.]

Congress
has been debating “Ed Flex” legislation regarding how much
federal direction should be given funds for education being sent back
to the states. A member of a large city-county school system’s
board of education has said “we need all the federal dollars we
can get.”

But
it’s not the federal government’s money—it’s
ours. And if you really want more money for education across
the nation, then we shouldn’t be sending these tax dollars to
the feds in the first place.

During
the hearings on Ed Flex, Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., noted that it takes
six times the number of people to administer federal dollars. And Sen.
Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark., said that half the paper work at the state level
is to comply with federal requirements. He also referred to Arizona
State Superintendent Lisa Keegan’s point that half of her employees
are overseeing federal dollars.

On
March 7, 1979, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., entered into the
Congressional Record recent editorials by leading American
newspapers (e.g., The Washington Post on February 11, The
New York Times on March 4, etc.) saying we do not need a U.S. Department
of Education. Besides, the 10th Amendment makes it clear that education
is not a federal responsibility. However, there are about 5,000 federal
employees in the U.S. Department of Education, and it’s obvious
we’re not going to meet their “national education goals”
for the year 2000 set forth in 1989.

In
the hearings on Ed Flex, one senator asked U.S. Secretary of Education
Richard Riley exactly what it is they do at DOE. After pondering this
question a moment, Secretary Riley replied that, for one thing, they
try to determine and disseminate best educational practices.

But
we already know “What Works,” because that’s the title
of an 86-page document produced by the Office of Educational Research
and Improvement in which I worked in Washington in the 1980s. It includes
research findings, descriptions of what works in education, and scholarly
references on about 60 subjects.

The
feds today will tell you they are still necessary and give needed direction
regarding how federal dollars should be used by the states. But teachers
and legislators will assure you that they themselves are not idiots,
and actually know best how our tax dollars should be spent on education.

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Just
abolish the U.S. Department of Education, and if you do the math, you’ll
see that if we don’t have federal bureaucrats and their requirements
siphoning off a huge chunk of our taxes, we’ll have MORE to spend
on education in each state. This should make our teachers, state legislators,
parents and all taxpayers happy.

Dennis Laurence Cuddy, historian
and political analyst, received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill (major in American History, minor in political science).
Dr. Cuddy has taught at the university level, has been a political and
economic risk analyst for an international consulting firm, and has been
a Senior Associate with the U.S. Department of Education.

Cuddy has also testified before members of Congress
on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. Dr. Cuddy has authored or
edited twenty books and booklets, and has written hundreds of articles
appearing in newspapers around the nation, including The Washington Post,
Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He has been a guest on numerous radio
talk shows in various parts of the country, such as ABC Radio in New York
City, and he has also been a guest on the national television programs
USA Today and CBS's Nightwatch.